True life is bodily resurrection, not the soul's own life

The life to come is a living again, since we learn that the soul is not its own life, nor life in truth, if indeed the soul is not the human being. For if the soul possessed the truth of living in its life by itself, the dead thing would not have needed to live again. Therefore the Lord also said that the dead live for God, as not yet having life except insofar as it is in the power of God who gave them life. And he says that they have perished if they do not attain the resurrection, saying that he will raise up his own, so that the one from him may not be lost. And Paul likewise says, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Corinthians 15:18). For God did not give the soul a bodiless life from the beginning, but immediately the life in the body, breathing the breath of life into the body (Genesis 2:7).

To the sinner, godliness is a ridiculous character; but to the godly person, lawlessness is horrifying, because he foresees the terror of punishment (Psalm 119:53; LXX 118:53).

“To me,” he says, “the only comfort is to look at your judgments, and my gladness is your commandments taken up in song and leading to joy through melody” (Psalm 119:54; LXX 118:54). And I considered this the only good, as in a foreign and alien dwelling that can have no true good, because for the stranger the things at home are longed for, and before the return to them everything is painful.

God does not fashion a human being in the manner of a modeler, even though he is said to fashion, but such as a modeler would produce, he completes by the power that works such a shaping. And the present fashionings must be referred back to that first fashioning, as in “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5) (Psalm 119:73; LXX 118:73). So also Job says, “You fashioned me as clay” (Job 10:9), indicating the clay-fashioning in Adam upon himself. The request in the making is a thanksgiving, very fittingly the request for the intellectual power that makes the commandments understood. About this Paul also says, “Think about what I say; for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). The request is fitting as addressed to the Creator, as if to say: Care for your own workmanship, and perfect the living being that is intellectual by understanding. And what you prepared for your own kinship, make your own through your knowledge of your wishes. Since from the beginning the human being needed a command, by which his mind was set without need of many commands, and indeed having fallen away from that one, he needs more commands to fill the greater lack.

For without training in many evils and the help of God that comes beyond hope, a person cannot be firmly fixed in virtue. For those without contest are easily shaken when a struggle comes. Therefore, having recognized in himself the firmness that comes from many hardships, he hymns the confirming providence of God. Then he asks for rest from labors, saying, “Let your mercy come to comfort me, according to your word to your servant” (Psalm 119:76).

Perhaps the righteous become dead rather than living under their afflictions, so as to resemble wineskins rather than human beings, losing their breath like settling frost, but choosing what is warm and active, as he says elsewhere, “They set me in dark places like the dead of the age” (Psalm 142 (143):3) (Psalm 119:83). But even in such things, he says, I did not stand away from the God-taught righteousness, just as Joseph guarded his righteous self-control.

He calls promises commandments. Trusting, he says, in your promises and their truth, I seek help from you, my God (Psalm 119:86; LXX 118:86).

He asks not to be handed over to the hands of those plotting against him unto death, asking for life—not yet the life eternal but the present one (Psalm 119:88; LXX 118:88). He does not ask for this as an end, but as something that will contribute to a good end, because, he says, having survived, I will keep the commandments of God, through which it is possible to obtain the life eternal (Psalm 119:93; LXX 118:93).

“I will follow your laws,” he says. “For I will have life in them, just as you have said to me: ‘The person who does them will live in them’ (Leviticus 18:5).” Therefore the righteous person alone lives, even if he seems to have died, and the unjust are dead even if they appear to live. For the former have the constitution of life in themselves, namely righteousness, while the latter, not having this, resemble lifeless things moved not by themselves but from outside, because their vital principle is outside, and they have not one life in themselves. Therefore the Lord, being himself the righteousness that truly is, declares himself to be the life, and says that those who do not share in him do not have life in themselves. And the death of the Savior is not only life, but also life-giving for human beings, becoming the release from death.